My 16-month theanine self-experiment

While this may not be a perfectly executed study, the "N=1 trial" part is not the problem.

There have been numerous medical and scientific studies with N=1, known as N-of-1 trials. These trials are very useful in chronic conditions where symptoms are stable and measurable, allowing for multiple crossover periods to assess treatment effects accurately.

Also…don't forget all the medical discoveries based on self-experimentation:

Werner Forssmann performed the first heart catheterization on himself. He got the Nobel prize.

Barry Marshal injected himself with heliobacter pylori to prove that it causes stomach ulcers. Also got the Nobel prize.

Jessie Lazear allowed himself to be bitten by mosquitoes infected with yellow fever to prove his hypothesis that mosquitoes were the vector for transmission. No Nobel prize, but he did contract the disease, thus proving his hypothesis…before dying from yellow fever two weeks later.

Nobel candidates cannot be deceased.

>Werner Forssmann performed the first heart catheterization on himself. He got the Nobel prize.

In case anyone else was confused how it would be possible to perform heart surgery on yourself, he did it through a vein in his arm, which is still incredibly impressive:

>In 1929, he put himself under local anesthesia and inserted a catheter into a vein of his arm. Not knowing if the catheter might pierce a vein, he put his life at risk. Forssmann was nevertheless successful; he safely passed the catheter into his heart.

He also had to trick the operating-room nurse into thinking he was operating on her.

Through the arm, I believe, is still the way it’s performed today!